AG delays execution for fundraiser

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has apologized for postponing an execution scheduled for Tuesday to accommodate a campaign fundraiser.

The Republican is going ahead with the fundraiser at her waterfront home to kick off her reelection campaign. But she said Monday night that it was a mistake for her office to ask Gov. Rick Scott to delay the execution. The request was granted and the execution, which had been postponed twice before, is now scheduled for Oct. 1.

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“The planned execution of Marshall Lee Gore had already been stayed twice by the courts, and we absolutely should not have requested that the date of the execution be moved,” Bondi said in a statement.

“As a prosecutor, there was nothing more important than seeing justice done, especially when it came to the unconscionable act of murder,” she continued. “I personally put two people on death row and, as attorney general, have already participated in eight executions since I took office, a role I take very seriously.”

The reason for the delay was first reported by The News Service of Florida.

Gore was sentenced to death for brutally murdering two women in the late 1980s.

“What’s going on down there? It’s ridiculous,” Phyllis Novick, the Ohio mother of one of his victims, told the Tampa Bay Times.

In Nashville earlier Tuesday, Bondi delivered the keynote address at a summit focused on recruiting female conservatives to run for office.